Glaciergate – a field day for climate skeptics

26 February 2010

The year has opened with post-Copenhagen recriminations and an unprecedented assault on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri. While Copenhagen continues to draw mixed assessments, the broadside against the IPCC and the invective carried in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper against Dr Pachauri caught many by surprise. Not that it should have. The infiltration of the email system of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) for a month late last year and the ensuing ‘Climategate’ storm with allegations of misconduct and bias by British climate scientists, should have alerted us that an orchestrated campaign against climate science had begun. Taking place conveniently in the lead-up to Copenhagen – no mistake that – Climategate sought to discredit the scientific basis for action on human-induced climate change. In that it had an effect, as opinion polls across the world showed a subsequent weakening of public confidence in assertions made by scientists and politicians for action on climate change.

Glaciergate, the revelation of mistakes in the IPCC’s peer-review process that allowed an error regarding the projected date of Himalayan glacier disappearance to appear in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, has caused similar damage to the reputation of climate scientists and the integrity of the IPCC as the gold-standard for climate research. The IPCC was slow to react to press allegations and too easily dismissed them out of hand before undertaking an internal assessment. The fact that the IPCC Chairman was under pressure at the same time for allegations of personal corruption did not help the IPCC’s media management. Beyond just a PR fiasco, the Glaciergate controversy has been highly personally damaging for Dr Pachuari and revealed for the first time the deficiencies in the IPCC’s own internal processes. Releasing a sex romp novel in the month that the IPCC came under the most intense public scrutiny of its life was perhaps not the wisest decision taken by its Chairman. Neither was the IPCC’s protracted admission that errors of oversight in the Glaciergate instance had been committed, and, indeed, that more could be expected given the IPCC’s over-reliance on scientists working in a volunteer capacity, rather than as full-time, paid professionals able to provide full due diligence of contributions. Overall, not a good month for science or scientists.

If the dirt thrown by Climategate and Glaciergate – however strongly politically-motivated by the climate-skeptic lobby – is not to stick, action must be taken swiftly. Both Dr Pachauri and the IPCC need to clear their names and re-establish the credibility that they enjoyed prior to these attacks. In the former it might well be suing those responsible for libelous personal attacks. In the case of the latter, it must surely be some degree of institutional reform to ensure that the deficiencies that have been brought to light lead to a changes in the peer-review and related processes. A number of proposals for reform of the IPCC are on the table. If the IPCC is serious about regaining public confidence – as opposed to merely the confidence of the cheerleaders of the climate advocate lobby – it must take them on board.

One thing we can be certain of – the climate skeptic and deniars lobby is not going away. The failure of the Copenhagen summit opened the gates of the last-chance saloon for the climate deniars. Here was manna from heaven. Climategate and Glaciergate have merely swelled their ranks and we will be seeing many more such orchestrated campaigns against the science, public trust, climate finance, carbon trading, and many more such issues in the coming months. We have been warned. If action on climate change is to have a chance, we will need a stronger strategy than one that has been on display so far.